August 2013 - Posts

Build2018: WinForms and .NET Core 3 announcement

Yesterday, both as part of the general Microsoft Build announcements and a blog post from the .NET team, there was a fairly momentous announcement about the proposed .NET Core 3.

In brief, among a bunch of other features, .NET Core 3 will also come with “Desktop packs” for Windows development. These packs will target individual run-times, the main ones being WinForms and WPF, and, unlike .NET Core, will only work on Windows. However, instead of using the full .NET Framework, they will instead use .NET Core. I heartily recommend going to read that blog post for more details.

What I want to do here is to quickly address a couple of questions that you, our customers, may have.

First: this is just an announcement at this particular stage. The first beta release for this is slated for later on in the year, in the autumn, with a possible release of the finished framework in 2019.

Second: we do not have any bits from the .NET team as yet; we heard about this at exactly the same time as everyone else. At this stage, we really cannot comment on how much work would be required to ‘port’ our current set of WinForms and WPF controls over to these new Desktop packs. (I’m reminded as to how long it took Microsoft to get a semi-workable System.Drawing in ASP.NET Core so that we could finally add some kind of export facility.) Or even, to be brutally honest, whether it will be advantageous for us to do so. Remember that the Desktop packs will only work on Windows, this is not a universal panacea to create, say, Mac apps using WinForms.

Third: another part of the announcement was adding the ability for UWP controls to work in a WinForms or WPF app. Again, we can’t profitably promise anything about this until we have the beta.

So, in summary, we’re intrigued, we’ll wait until we have a workable beta, and then experiment and make our decisions. Stay tuned!

Microsoft Build is coming…

I’m certain that if you are a developer that uses anything in the Microsoft stack (Azure, Windows, Visual Studio, VSCode) to any great degree, you will know that next week is the week of the Microsoft Build developers’ conference in “sunny” Seattle. May 7th to the 9th, inclusive, to be precise. And, yes, Developer Express will be there with their booth, ably hosted by Amanda; with technical evangelists Areg and Mehul, who really know their stuff and who are ready to discuss your use of our products, and demo our controls and widgets; and … me. I’m pretty good at tidying up the booth and folding the <cough> Eat, Sleep, BUILD <cough> t-shirts we’ll be giving away as swag.

So, if you’re going to Build, please do come on over to the exhibit hall, and specifically to our booth (E24 near the Client and Web area on the expo floor). Come have a chat about your projects, development issues, and to hear how we could help you. Of course, we’ll have some news about our first main major release of 2018 (it’s close!). And did I mention the t-shirts?

DevExpress Roadmap for 2018

Back at the end of 2017, we held a series of four webinars over four days to describe the features and enhancements we were considering for our products in 2018. As a part of that, we sent out a survey to selected users so that they could review those plans and vote on them. This way, we can ascertain what aspects of our roadmap for 2018 our customers are most interested in and thereby direct and focus our development efforts to fulfill those needs.

Our official 2018 roadmap is now live on DevExpress.com for all active customers. You will need to login to our site, and then you can use the links below to review our plans for this year's two major release cycles and tell us what you think of the features we have planned for each platform.

Before I list the platforms and the links though, I must stress the following:

This roadmap is for informational purposes only. You should not rely upon it for major purchase or product planning decisions/commitments. Just like all software development projects, products/features in this roadmap are subject to change or delay, with or without notice. The development or release of a specific feature or product listed on this roadmap is at the sole discretion of Developer Express Inc.

I would strongly encourage you to vote on the features we describe in the roadmap for the platforms you are interested in. If you don’t, we won’t know what you want us to focus on! (And the teams will go off and do something else – a ToDo List control anyone?)

Fun times at Microsoft Tech Summit, Frankfurt

Last week, on Wednesday and Thursday, was the Microsoft Tech Summit (MTS) at the Messe Frankfurt. Hall 3 to be precise. And you had to be precise: although the Messe is a sprawling convention center with six halls, let alone the concert hall (pictured), due to security concerns you had to enter by one gate and one gate only.

With me was Przemysław Włodarczak, our whizz CodeRush developer from Poland, so you can imagine that the CodeRush demos he did in the booth were something to be experienced. Me, on the other hand, I had my hands full in demoing our WPF controls, as well as DevExtreme, especially for ASP.NET Core and Angular. We met existing customers (including a couple who were weaning themselves off their Silverlight apps!) and touched base with some possible new customers. Let’s hope we were able to sway them with our demos, if not the DevExpress Eat-Sleep-Code t-shirts we were giving away.

The surreal thing about this MTS event was the layout in the hall. To emphasize the themes of Cloud, Cloud management and development, the sessions were all held in eleven “Cloud” tents inside the Hall. These were inflatable white tents with rows of seating inside. An imaginative solution, to be sure, although I was told the really popular sessions meant that things got a little warm inside.

For us, with our hotel and the BASTA! event half a mile away, we got very used to the freezing cold winds funneled by the Messeturm as we walked back and forth to the hotel. Back in the day, when I worked for a certain bank in Frankfurt, this tower was known as the Pencil, for obvious reasons. It was the tallest building in Europe until 1997, when the Commerzbank Tower (also in Frankfurt) was completed.

Spoiled for choice in Frankfurt

Just a quick note to say that the DevExpress team are in Frankfurt this week to support two events: BASTA! and Microsoft Tech Summit. Luckily the events are right next door to each other: the first at the Frankfurt Marriott Hotel and the second, over the street, in hall 3 of the Frankfurt Messe.

At BASTA! there’s our DevExpress booth with John Martin, Don Wibier, and Oliver Sturm, with the latter two also presenting various sessions and workshops. At Microsoft Tech Summit, we have another DevExpress booth with Przemysław Włodarczak and yours truly. Yes, two booths at two events in the same city at the same time: I think this is the first time we’ve done this!

If you’re here at either event (or both), first of all my congratulations since they’re both sold out, and second, please do come over to either one and say hi. We’ll be glad to talk about and show off what we’re doing at DevExpress and to investigate how we can help you in your development efforts this year. See you soon!